


Coming Home

by Linnrinn



Series: Death Is Only The Beginning... [12]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29448561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linnrinn/pseuds/Linnrinn
Summary: Andy and Quynh take a vacation to Quynh's homeland and find that some things change and some are constant.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Series: Death Is Only The Beginning... [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2066418
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

> whew...i haven't posted in a few weeks because i have had the worst computer problems! without details it involved crashing hard drives, numerous tech support chats over hours, failed operating system installations, ect. on top of that Ive been averaging 10-11 hour days, so its been a whirlwind. 
> 
> anyways, since my last story was sending Nile on vacation and Booker joining her, i thought i should catch up with the others vacations as well. ive been wanting to get into exploring Andy and Quynh a little more so i was happy when this story came up.

Andy was frustrated. She glared at the gray clouds that continued to dump rain from its depths without showing signs of stopping. The soggy gloom seemed to reflect her own irate and sullen mood. So far, this vacation to bring Quynh back her homeland had looked nothing like what Andy had planned.

It hadn’t, by any means, been all bad. They’d started out in Hanoi, modern Vietnam’s capital, and the first couple of days had been somewhat enjoyable. They’d spent hours getting lost in the Old Town Quarter, buying souvenirs for the others, eating their weight in street food, and enjoying the Night Market’s light, sounds and bustling. The eclectic mix of dated medieval era architecture with motorbikes, cell phones and other modernities was interesting and exciting. They’d attended the Hanoi water puppet show and Andy had even been able to get Quynh to go for a walk along the shoreline of Tay Ho, Westlake, though Quynh had drawn the line at trying the seafood eateries. They’d enjoyed the Museum of Ethnology and the visit to Duong Lam Ancient Village had made them both contemplative with nostalgia for life in centuries past.

Andy had also taken Quynh to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, the Hoa Lo prison, and other museums to catch her up on Vietnam’s history. Quynh had never known her homeland as Vietnam, having been from the Southern portion far before it had been annexed into what is now Vietnam proper. It hadn’t been named Vietnam until centuries into her time in the iron coffin, and its borders had changed with the additions of surrounding lands to it.

Once they had made their way to the province of Tra Vinh, there had been a few hiccups along the way. An unfortunate bout of food poisoning from a local eatery had left them bed ridden for a few days. With Quynh’s aversion to water, Andy had wisely avoided the mangrove boat tours and hadn’t bothered to even ask about kayaking tours, but she’d overlooked the potential affects that some of the waterside restaurants of Long Tri Isle and they’d spent a miserable dinner with Quynh anxious and prickly, a mood that carried on through the night and into next morning. After that, Andy had crossed Ba Dong Beach off the itinerary entirely, despite her plans to avoid any water activities.

Deciding that visiting some of the ancient temples and pagodas of Tra Vinh was a safer bet, Andy had taken Quynh to see the Hang Pagoda again. They’d seen it in their early centuries together, but Quynh had yet to have seen it after it’s restoration in the nineteen hundreds. Her hopes for an enjoyable tour ended with forgetting to check the damned weather app Nile had installed on her smart phone (technology continued to befuddle her with its advancements), resulting in them being forced to take shelter under the eaves of the pagoda as the skies rained down on them.

But overall, it was nothing Andy couldn’t handle. What had thrown her for a loop had been her wife. Over the past few weeks, Quynh had grown in melancholy and waspish irritation as her enjoyment and excitement declined in similar ratios. Andy was used to the ebb and flow of Quynh in all her elements: fiery, exuberant, deeply grieved, aggressively annoyed, unrestrained affection and loving. They were all a part of the woman she loved, and Quynh was never one to stay long in the negative moods. Hence her lingering in such a state left the Scythian concerned as her wife sunk deeper and deeper into it with the passing days. It had left them both irritated, sullen and combative when she would have liked to be enjoying their time together.

Andy turned to watch Quynh, who seemed far away in her thoughts, staring out at the wet, green lush of foliage around the Khmer temple as they waited for the storm to ease. Trying once again to brighten or interest her, she spoke up over the drumming of the rain.

“I thought we could go to the Khmer Museum after this.”

Quynh didn’t turn to her. “No.”

“We could rent motorbikes to go to the Vam Ray Pagoda?”

“No.” This time, her answer was curt and irritable, and the buildup of frustration from the last few weeks finally spilled over.

Irritated, Andy snapped at her. “Then what do you want, Quynh?! I’m not a fucking mind reader. Shit. I can’t seem to get any of this right.” Sour annoyance curled in her gut as she stalked a few yards away for space.

“What is the matter with you?!” Quynh snarked after her.

Andy turned back around to face her, though she kept the distance she’d made between them. “The problem is that I don’t know what’s the matter with _you_. I don’t know what to do for you, Quynh. I don’t know what you want or what will make you happy. Seems like this fucking vacation has just made you miserable.”

“I don’t know what I want!” Quynh shouted back, the volume echoing into the forest around them. Thank goodness other tourists weren’t around, probably having checked the weather and opted for less wet activities. Andy stopped short, the outburst jarring her from her own building annoyance and replacing it with guilt over their arguing. Quynh looked just as stricken, and they both stood there at a loss.

“I don’t want to do anything, Andromache. I just want to go back to the hotel.”

Andy let out a heavy, frustrated breath and nodded. “Alright, love. We’ll go back. Maybe I can go to the Tra Vinh Market and finish shopping for the others while you rest.” She figured the excuse would give them both some space as she waited for the tides to change, so to speak. Or maybe this whole thing had been one big, bad idea. As she turned to go, Quynh’s voice stopped her, hesitant and apologetic.

“Andromache?”

“Yeah?”

“Could you hold me?”

Andy didn’t hesitate, the weeks of tension and snapping at each other still nothing in comparison to the gratitude she felt every day for having Quynh at her side after centuries without her. She would hold her no matter how many bad vacations they went on, how many times they argued, or how frustrated she still was. Coming up behind her, Andy wrapped her arms around Quynh’s shoulders, facing the wet forest together. They stayed that way for a long while, until Quynh’s hands moved to rest over Andy’s arms.

“I’m sorry. I’ve been horrible these past few weeks and I know it,” the shorter woman sighed finally. “I just…” Her voice trailed off.

“It’s already forgiven,” Andy replied. “But I wish I knew what was bothering you, Quynh, so I could help. I thought that you would enjoy seeing your home and being together.”

“It’s not my home,” Quynh muttered bitterly, quietly, almost completely covered by the rain.

Andy resisted the urge to respond immediately, instead turning over the words in her mind. She thought back to Quynh’s peaceful mood after seeing the ancient village vanish and turn into sullen withdrawal. She remembered her disinterest and uncharacteristic lack of desire to explore after a marathon of museums and history lessons. All the little signs that Andy should have seen but hadn’t realized in an attempt to reconnect Quynh with her home. What used to be her home was something now entirely different and unrecognizable.

“Oh Quynh,” her voice empathetic with her realization.

“It’s all so different from what I remember,” the younger woman explained quietly. “The technology, the history, the people. Things that were familiar to me are just considered history and something long gone to the world. And all the things that have passed, the French occupation, the division of the country and war, the revolutions, all of it feels like I should know it, should have been there. But it’s just like how others feel about my home: an unfamiliar and distant history lesson of a place I once loved.”

Andy’s arms tightened around her shoulders. “I can’t imagine how hard it is, my one, to have what used to be a familiar and comforting home to be so unrecognizable.”

Quynh leaned her head back to rest it against Andy’s shoulder, her temple brushing the taller woman’s jawline. “It’s not just my homeland, Andromache. It’s everything. Everywhere. The technology. The world. It’s all so different and overwhelming. It’s exciting at times, but sometimes it feels like so much, like I’ve been spun in circles and can’t find my balance. I know it is unrealistic to expect the world to have not changed, but I wish it didn’t.”

Andy paused, a thought surfacing. “Have I changed?”

The question caught Quynh off guard, making her answer slow in delivery as she thought it over. “In some ways, yes. But mostly, no. You’re you. Still recognizable and familiar, if not a bit more melancholy and jaded at times, but still you.”

Andy hesitated, thinking over the past few weeks and even farther back in recent years. A niggling doubt that had wormed its way deep over that time, one she’d refused to acknowledge and had yet harbored all the same. The words felt dangerous, like the moment right before the drop of one of those damn rollercoasters Nile had made them ride a few years back.

“Have we changed? You and I together?” She whispered, loathing to say the words but unable to keep them to herself. “We will always be family. But you and I? Us?”

At that, the younger woman turned to look up at her, but Andy was staring out across the scenery, avoidance and dread obvious as she looked anywhere but at Quynh. Reaching up, she placed a palm against her cheek, drawing Andy’s gaze back to her.

“Have you been worrying about this for so long, love?” She asked her sadly.

Andy’s green eyes closed as she struggled to answer. “I never thought I’d see you again; that one day your immortality would run out. I dreaded the day Booker would stop dreaming of you. I felt such twisted relief to see him in the morning with dark circles under his eyes from being woken by nightmares of you. I felt guilty for finding relief in his suffering, and yours, even though it meant you were still alive.” She opened her eyes and looked into Quynh’s dark ones.

“Just like you knew the world would be different, I knew when we found you that it would be different for us too. And I fervently wish it wasn’t.” Andy gestured to the architecture and foliage around them. “What if, like your home, we’ve gone through so much that it will only bring grief and distance between us? What if our bad days together outweigh our good days?”

Quynh’s eyes became glassy. Her hand slipped down the column of Andy’s neck to rest on the pendant hanging over Andy’s sternum. “I know it’s been difficult between us, fighting sometimes, my unpredictable feelings and moods, trying to navigate a new world while figuring out who we are together after so much time apart…but I want to believe that we can find steady footing together again.”

“I want to believe that too,” Andy answered with sad longing. “But I wonder if the centuries without each other, me mourning, you suffering, if it broke something between us. I feel like something is off. Like I could make the wrong move and the last strings tethering us will break.” Her arms tightened desperately around Quynh as if she were going to disappear, melting away in the moist humid air.

Quynh hugged back just as tight, trying to imbue assurance in her grip. She snuggled her face into the crook of Andy’s neck and shoulder. Damn the world and its changes. This was one thing she refused to let go of.

“Andromache, you and me, us, is something that won’t ever change, deep down. It may look different on the surface, but not what’s important. My homeland may have changed, so much so that it’s unrecognizable to me, but places like this keep its heart alive.” She pulled back to gesture at the Hang Pagoda that sheltered them. “I was getting so caught up in all the changes here that I forgot to appreciate what has lasted despite the moving of time. You and I, together, may look a little different after a few centuries of trauma, loneliness and grief, but the heart of us is still here.”

Andy felt something let loose inside her, like a constricting coil around her heart that squeezed and cut, finally easing. Relief flooded, warm and aching, in its place. She rested her forehead against her wife’s, letting her words become the solid stone under her feet.

“This part of the world may have once been where I lived, my origin, but you are my home, Andromache.” Quynh assured her with conviction. “It’s like being away from your house for so long that when you return, even the smell of it brings with it all the love and safety and comfort you didn’t know you were missing till you were back. The world spins and time passes and still, you will always be my home.”

Andy smiled and tenderly, slowly, reverently lay a gentle kiss at her temples and lips, even as the rain poured down harder, pounding on the overhang that sheltered them. In a relieved tone, she spoke into her love’s ear.

“It’s good to be home.”

**Author's Note:**

> \- i hopped between them going to Hanoi (since its the capital) and Tra Vinh because the wiki page on the actress for Quynh, Van Veronica Ngo, stated she was from the Tra Vinh area which was helpful cause i wouldn't have any clue otherwise where to center this story.
> 
> \- i cant imagine Andy and Quynh's relationship would be the same or even easy upon her return, as much as they love each other, and it may take years for them to work through it and get on the same page again. And as much as i love easy love stories where its feel-good like comfort food, i know the value of exploring conflict between them or what they face down together. so i figured this was a good place to start as any.
> 
> \- on top of that, my family moved a fair amount as a child and i know the feeling of returning to something and realizing how different it is from what you know, no longer familiar or comforting. There's a certain grief that comes with that and i can see Q not only fighting to find the steady ground between her and Andy, but mourning the major changes and unfamiliarity this new world brings with it. Change can be exciting and hard in equal measures.


End file.
